mama lowery

My mom came up for a visit last week and it was SO wonderful having her here. The girls had a blast hanging out with her. Jamie and I enjoyed her company and extra help!

My mom, always in teacher mode, was showing Annie how to use her Kindle.

Riding the subway with Audrie...

 My mom and I took the girls to an adorable little cafe called Alice's Teacup. It was just as magical as I hoped it would be. (When we walked in they sprinkled the girls with fairy dust and had them make a wish.)

 They served us a lovely pink raspberry tea and we ordered some tasty sandwiches and soup.

 Annie had a little trouble sipping from the fine china, so we let her use a spoon to drink her tea.

We visited the Statue of Liberty... ha!

 I had never been to the Highline Park so we walked a few million blocks but then found it.

Me and my mom at the Highline...

 Besides having my mom here to love on us, it was nice for Jamie and I get a chance to get away and spend some time together.

Audrie and Annie miss their Grandma Lowery so much already! Hurry back, mom!

paparazzi

Audrie loves to take pictures with my phone, but today I let her walk around our apartment and take photos with my Canon camera. She was excited! She took 94 pictures in about 10 minutes. 

Here are a few of them...

 (Audrie told me to pose for this next picture. After she snapped it, she peeked around the camera and said "You look great!" and gave me a thumbs up. Totally cracked me up.)

 Then I tried to show her how to hold the camera out to take a photo of herself.

And then the last picture on the roll....

Thanks, Audrie, for the fun photo session! :)

art lesson

So Audrie comes up to me last night and says "I got a good idea, mommy!" (She says that at least a hundred times a day.) She said that we should make a video of her teaching someone how to draw. I said sure and got my video camera out. And, oh my goodness, you might think that I had anything to do with this lesson, but I swear to you that all I did was sit there and hold the camera (and grin a lot). She is such a little teacher. Cracks me up!

And I had no clue that she knew how to draw a pumpkin. I just turned on the camera and this is what she did. I asked her later how she learned to draw that and she said "I made it up in my head"! Love her.

one more beach photo

I forgot to post my favorite picture from our beach vacation.

Maybe it's all the episodes of MadMen that Jamie and I watched on this vacation, but something about this picture makes me think of the 1950's.

The Audrie and Annie Show

It's been awhile since I've posted any videos of the girls. Tonight the girls and I were having a jam session so I thought I'd share a few of the videos I captured.

(I set the video camera on the edge of the couch and just let it run. A few times you hear me playing the guitar pretty badly and it's because Annie is trying to lick the guitar while I play. For real.)

Audrie told me she wanted to sing "Twinkle Little Star" but "her own way" (like Frank Sinatra- she does it 'my way'), so we hadn't worked on this- she just made it up on the spot.


Enjoy the show!




And then of course Annie wanted her time in the spotlight, too:

And some bonus footage of Audrie singing "Call me Maybe" and she improvises a bit at the end (my favorite is the last few seconds when Annie closes the show by picking her nose...!)

rest of our beach photos

Finally getting around to blogging the rest of our beach vacation trip to Virginia Beach last month!

The day before we left we got the car seats out of the closets and all Annie wanted to do all day was sit in her car seat and play with the iPhone. I tried to convince her to go play because she was going to be doing that all the next day!

It was a 7 hour car ride so we stocked up on movies. Here is Annie holding the laptop as close to her face as she could. :)

It rained on our drive, but the girls were great.

We drove across the Chesapeake bridge (23 miles long). We also drove through some states we've never been to- Maryland, Delaware, and of course Virginia.

We got to Virginia Beach that evening. In time to see the ocean before the sun set.

The next morning the girls were excited to get out in the water!

That afternoon we rode these bicycles built for 4. So much fun, but we didn't realize how much exercise it was going to be. We were pretty sweaty by the time we finished!

On the boardwalk there is a huge statue of King Neptune, but the girls thought it was King Triton from the Little Mermaid- so they loved seeing it every day!

Jamie and Audrie dug a huge hole in the sand every day.

On our last night there we went to the kiddie carnival on the boardwalk. The girls were excited!!

Are we tall enough??

View from the top of the ferris wheel.

Audrie got to ride some of the rides by herself, which was a big deal to her.

And Annie got to ride one by herself, too! (Made me a little nervous- I was afraid she was going to decide she was done and jump out at any minute!)

They played some carnival games.

And won prizes!

And even though it was late and they needed to get to bed- we had to go out for ice cream!

We had such a great time on this trip! It was the ultimate in relaxation and family time.